AI battle assistance: how to use it?

[Slaists]

I wondered if anybody here has a good grasp of how to use the new "AI assistance" feature on the battle map. According to CA, it is supposed to reduce micro-management on the tactical game level.

Well, I tried it... I had 4 units of hastati forming my front line. I grouped them, set them in guard mode (to hold the line) and waited for the enemy to approach. Once the enemy made my archers (set far in the front of the main army) skirmish back, I set the 4 hastati group on AI assistance, thinking not much could go wrong with a group holding the line in a formation. Well, wrong i was... Instead of holding the line (with the "guard" option still on) they chaotically ran (not charged) towards the approaching enemy to unload their pila (auto-fire option was not on). On top of that, they managed to have two of the hastati units mingle and kill about 1/3 of each other by friendly fire... As if that was not enough, later, one of the retard units decided it was a good idea to unload their remaining pila into the backs of a routing enemy unit pursued by my general... My galant general bit the dust...

So how has CA envisioned using the AI assist option???

~:confused:

[Colovion]

Well how I see it the AI button really stands for "Annonymous Injuries and not Artificial Intelligence.

You see whenever you assign a group to AI Assistance there is a vast amount of annonymous injuries which will undoubtedly be inflicted upon your troops. From charging the General into a pikewall to archers raining death upon your hundreds of troops who are hellbent on killing but a dozen men in their presence. But this takes a whole different twist, one that some are calling Archer Idiocy and comes in a variety of flavours. It partially comes from the archers not having the sense to stop firing at the enemy once your troops have engaged them. Granted, the majority of this time you have told them to fire, or have kept fire at will mode on so it isn't wholly their fault when these things happen. The larger portion of this comes from the archers inability to aim more than 3 meters in front of them. You see, somehow the archers are able to judge the distance, tragectory and all sorts of weather patterns in front of them to be able to fire a projectile to kill the enemy but are incapable of noticing their buddy sitting in front of them or walking through their ranks. THe result? Annonymous Injuries through Archer Idiocy - a few of your troops get a nice shiny arrow of their own - right in their back.